


Only Fools Fall In Love

by barfboy



Series: Prophecies of Youth [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Vomit, F/F, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 08:58:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6511570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barfboy/pseuds/barfboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin and Obi-Wan talk about love in an ancient Jedi temple while searching for a long lost holocron and then a giant slime monster barfs on Anakin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Fools Fall In Love

**Author's Note:**

> Please suspend your disbelief about the scientific nature of planets and slime monster digestive systems. Its fine. It's Star Wars.
> 
> ALSO this fic takes place roughly five months after the previous fic. Anakin is 20. Everyone else's ages remain the same.

The mission should have been a simple one:  Enter the creepy abandoned Jedi temple, find an ancient holocron containing long lost secrets about the first Jedi which might prove useful in the war against the Separatists, leave.  But to be fair, Anakin should have known that any mission with such a straight forward briefing would end up being an endless nightmare, emphasis on the _endless_.

What Master Yoda had failed to mention while explaining their objective back on the _Resolute_ was that, in this particular bygone era, Jedi had apparently seen fit to build their temples into the ground, with complex, maze-like internal structures; a tactic to avoid detection by the Sith according to Obi-Wan.  Any Jedi who had been alive during the Temple’s prime would have had the knowledge necessary to easily navigate its winding hallways, but all Obi-Wan and Anakin had was an incomplete holomap of the general structure, charted by a multisensory pulse they had shot into the mantle of the planet.

If there hadn’t been so much concern over a Separatist attack in the system, there would have been enough time to send probes into the temple, but with the threat of General Grievous’ fleet so near, they couldn’t take any chances that this holocron – if it even existed – might fall into Count Dooku’s hands.

So Obi-Wan and Anakin were on their own and had been for at least two days now.  Ahsoka and Rex had set up camp above ground, scouting the immediate area surrounding the temple and acting as a medium through which Obi-Wan and Anakin could re-lay messages up to Admiral Yularen who was in orbit aboard the _Resolute_ , scanning for Separatist ships.  The lower they descended into the temple’s depths, however, the farther out of range they became, and the more static came through in their communications with Ahsoka.  Soon Anakin feared they wouldn’t be able to reach her at all, which meant that if the Separatists _did_ show their ugly faces, he and Obi-Wan were screwed.

As a result of their confinement together, topics of conversation varied.  Mostly they talked about the war; strategies, predictions, fears, dreams of a better galaxy  (most of the dreaming was done by Anakin, to which Obi-Wan tended to reply with, “That’s not realistic, Anakin,” or “Please, Anakin, don’t be absurd,” or “Honestly I think I’d rather be at war,”).  Sometimes there was no conversation, stretches of time filled with nothing but peaceful, companionable silence.

Being silent with Obi-Wan was always easy, although it had never come naturally.  Anakin remembered Obi-Wan as a harshly silent mentor when he was younger, tending to spend long periods on missions or in the temple with his own personal cloak of reticence wrapped tightly around him, especially in the immediate aftermath of Qui-Gon’s death.  For Anakin, who had always been at odds with his differing impressions of Obi-Wan as Qui-Gon’s padawan and Obi-Wan as Anakin’s Master, the silence had been hard to deal with at first.  Eventually, Anakin learned how to fit himself into that quiet space that Obi-Wan seemed to occupy sometimes and now it was as natural as falling asleep, but occasionally it went on too long.

When they had exhausted most conventional topics and the silence became too stagnant, Anakin turned to personal issues.  One in particular that had been bothering him for some time, and one which he could speak to about no one besides Obi-Wan (and perhaps the Chancellor).  Seeing as the latter was currently unavailable, Anakin settled for Obi-Wan.

“I haven’t heard from Padme lately,” he said, as they packed up their rather pathetic camp which consisted of little more than bed rolls and a portable heater.  The heater gave off light as well but many of the hallways seemed to have built in lights running along the corners of the floor and the ceiling, although they were not always dependably functional.

The look he got from Obi-Wan after saying this spoke volumes about Obi-Wan’s feelings regarding both Anakin’s disruption of their quiet moment and his former love affair with the senator.  He received no verbal response at all from his former master.

“I was wondering if you knew where she is,” Anakin said, trying to sound detached and probably failing.

“Where she is?” Obi-Wan echoed, rolling up the padding of his bed roll.  “What do you mean, has she gone somewhere?”

“Well,” Anakin slung his pack over his shoulder and spread his arms.  “I don’t know!  That’s why I’m asking you.  We haven’t exactly been in contact since… you know, but she usually sends me updates on her motions in the senate, but I haven’t heard anything from her in weeks.”

“Hmm,” said Obi-Wan in a tone of voice which clearly indicated that he knew something.  It riled Anakin because Obi-Wan had a history of making this knowing noise whether he knew something or not, which meant it was virtually impossible to tell whether or not he _did_ know something.  Eventually he said, “Perhaps she’s simply been too busy with politics to keep you apprised of her motions.”

“It’s more than that.  I haven’t heard news of her in ages.  She hasn’t even been in holonet debates recently.  Jar Jar’s standing in for her.  It’s as though she’s trying to completely erase herself from my life.”

Obi-Wan made his little noise again and stood with his own pack.  They both ignited their light sabers to illuminate the intermittently dark hallways as they once again began their trek further into the temple.  “The fact that she’s taking a leave of absence suggests to me that she is dealing with a personal matter or perhaps a mission of her own.  I doubt she’s been neglecting her duties simply to keep _you_ from being able to watch her debates on the holonet.”

“You disapprove,” Anakin said.

“As a matter of fact.”

“It’s not as easy as you seem to think, Master.”  He jogged forward to walk beside Obi-Wan.  “Once you’ve fallen in love, that person is in your heart forever whether you want them to be or not.” He didn’t get a response from Obi-Wan about this and didn’t know why he was surprised.  Obi-Wan was and always had been the perfect Jedi.  Compassionate, sure, but cold and calculating somehow at the time. “You’d never understand,” Anakin muttered.

“Oh, honestly.” The exasperation in Obi-Wan’s tone caught Anakin off guard.  “You barely knew her, Anakin.”

“Excuse me?” Anakin said, trying and failing to keep the hostility he was feeling out of his voice.

“Anakin,” And this time Obi-Wan at least sounded a little bit less accusatory and a little bit more placid.  “Your entire childhood you built her up into some grand, ideal fantasy, spent approximately two weeks with her after ten years of her absence, and then decided you were in _love_ with her.  That’s _not_ what-,” he cut himself off and sighed sharply.  “Like I said.  You barely knew her.”

“Oh yeah?  And who says you can’t love someone just because you haven’t spent your whole life with them?  What would you even know about it, anyway?”

Obi-Wan muttered something under his breath and said, “Nothing, I suppose.”

Anakin wanted to push the argument further.  He wanted Obi-Wan to admit that for once he was out of his depth about something; that Anakin did know more than him about love, but Obi-Wan very abruptly and very purposefully quickened his pace after he spoke, turning down a narrow shaft-like hallway so that there was no longer room for Anakin to walk beside him.

In true form, Anakin did not take the hint.  “So it’s settled, then?”

“What’s settled?  I wasn’t aware we were settling something.”

“You admit that my love for Padme is real.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan whirled around in the passageway. “This is neither the time, nor the place for this discussion.  We’ve got a job to do.  I suggest we do it.”

“If not now, then when?  On Coruscant, at the temple, where I never see you anymore?  Or what about on a different mission, in the middle of a battle while we’re fighting for our lives?”

“The answer is never, Anakin!” Obi-Wan said.  “I won’t engage in a conversation in which you attempt to trick me into agreeing with you when I do not, nor will I presume to tell you the nature of your own emotions.  You want me to play some child’s mind game with you that you have rigged in such a way that I cannot win, and I refuse to participate in it.”

For several moments Anakin stared at Obi-Wan’s face, flushed even in the blue glow of his lightsaber.  Based on instinct, Anakin would assume he saw anger there between the lines in Obi-Wan’s brow, but his mind told him that wasn’t possible.  Obi-Wan did not know anger, he only knew premeditated reason, so perhaps it was just the humid heat of their bodies packed into a confined space that turned Obi-Wan’s face red and his skin drawn.

The uncertainty of Obi-Wan’s feelings, shielded as they were from him, lead Anakin to quell his own anger.  “I only want you to be honest with me, Obi-Wan.”

“Well then, honestly,” Obi-Wan said, and turned around, continuing his march down the passageway.  “I think you believe that you love her and in a certain way, your beliefs are founded.  But I am not confident that your professed love, if tested, would hold.”

“How can you say that?” Anakin asked, mortified and curious at the same time.  “It _has_ held!  I’ve already let her go!  What more can I do to prove that my love for her is real?”

“In the asking of it, you have answered your own question, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said.

“Thank you, Master Yoda.  As always your vague wisdom is incredibly helpful.”

At this, Obi-Wan shot Anakin, a _look_. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.” He sighed.  “What I mean is, even now after you have claimed to let her go, you are vying to prove your love for her, which is inane.  You cannot let go of your attachments and at the same time desperately cling to them.  I understand that you need time, Anakin.  I am willing to give it to you, all that you need.  But do not try to prove something to me in one breath, and then deny it in the next.  You’re going to drive me to an early grave if you carry on like this.”

“So you’re saying that you don’t believe my love for Padme is real because I haven’t let go of her?  Even though I’ve let her walk completely out of my life?  Master, that makes absolutely no sense, you’re telling me I don’t love her because I love her too much?”

Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose.  “No, Anakin.  What I’m saying is:  Just because someone is no longer physically in your life, doesn’t mean you have let them go.  And you, in particular, have not let go of Padme Amidala since you first laid eyes on her when you were a boy which is why, I believe, this is proving to be so difficult for you.  Nonetheless, it is something you must learn to do.”

Anakin, who had his mouth open and was fully equipped with a prepared counter argument, abruptly shut his mouth when a deep rumble echoed from somewhere up ahead of them, shaking dust from the hallway’s low ceiling.  It slowly grew closer and Anakin and Obi-Wan waited in silence until something very large and very fast came rolling past the end of the passage and then disappeared.

Obi-Wan hummed thoughtfully.

“There’s something _alive_ down here?” Anakin said.

“Well,” Obi-Wan looked behind himself at Anakin.  “This certainly makes things more interesting.”

In response, Anakin lifted his comlink to his mouth and said, “Ahsoka, come in.”

“We read y--, Master.  Wha- -–e situation down there?”

“We’ve encountered some activity.”

“What kind – act---ity?”

“The alive kind.  Are you getting any life sign readings up there?  It looked pretty big.”

“—not ----- -----ing – on – sca----s.”

“Ahsoka?”

Anakin received only static in reply, Ahsoka’s voice completely drowned out.

“We’re likely too far down for them to reach us on scanners,” Obi-Wan said.  “This temple is ancient.  The old writings describe it as being so deep it reaches the planet core.”

“Apparently we’re too far down for them to reach us on comlinks either.”  Anakin lowered his hand.  “Isn’t this planet’s core made up of acid?”

“Hmm,” Obi-Wan said.  “So it is.”

Anakin gave Obi-Wan a look of nervous exasperation which Obi-Wan ignored, as usual.

“Well, we might as well keep going. That holocron isn’t going to find itself.”

=======

For several more agonizing hours, they wandered through the temple’s mazes.  With each floor, they delved further and further into the planet’s mantle, protected from the heat and pressure only by ancient shielding technology which Anakin thought frankly looked like it was about to give up and die at any moment. 

Obi-Wan for his part seemed to be thriving in their new found silence, which Anakin granted him only because he didn’t want to get into another argument.  For as bullheaded as Obi-Wan always told him he was, it seemed more and more the older he grew that he had learned all of his stubbornness from Obi-Wan himself.  Anakin would never dare to voice this finding, of course, but still.  The thought brought him peace, in some ways, to know that Obi-Wan could share such a trait with him.  In other ways of course it brought him unbridled frustration and ire.

It wasn’t until they entered a room in which something appeared to be dripping from the ceiling that Anakin broke their peaceful quiet.  “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Obi-Wan said, and ripped a piece of fabric from the sleeve of his robe, holding it out in front of him between two hands.  Another drop of liquid came falling from the ceiling and landed squarely in the middle of the cloth, searing straight through it and then eating into the frayed edges left behind.  Obi-Wan dropped its remnants and sent Anakin wry smile.  “How lovely,” he said.  “We’ve breached the mantle.”

“Great.”

They pressed on, carefully avoiding the rooms in which the planet’s acid had begun to eat through the ceiling and pool on the floor.  As they moved deeper and deeper into the temple, these rooms grew more and more frequent.

“If we don’t find this thing soon I don’t think we’re going to,” Anakin said and at that moment something shook the hall around them so violently that small cracks began to run their way up the pillars supporting it.

Obi-Wan took a cautious step backwards and Anakin followed his line of sight to the large opening at the end of the hall.  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“Is that so?” Anakin said just in time for something that looked like a Hutt but rounder, three times as big, and translucent, to come rolling into the room, ignoring them completely. As s it moved it seemed to expand its own body, pressing up against the ceiling rhythmically as though it were beating a drum, and with each beat more and more cracks crept through the ceiling.  Just when Anakin thought the whole thing was about to give out and cave in, the creature stopped and extended what he could only assume was a head at the end of a long, thin neck from within the mass of its shapeless body.

He and Obi-Wan watched in horror and fascination respectively (or so Anakin assumed) as the creature slurped the acid that had begun seeping through the cracks it had pounded in the ceiling.

“Anakin,” Ob-Wan hissed, nudging him in the arm.  “Do you see that?”

“I wish I _wasn’t_ seeing it.”

“What?” Obi-Wan looked at him briefly and then said, “Not _that_ , Anakin.  Inside the animal’s body, look, the Holocron.”

Sure enough, when Anakin finally managed to rip his gaze away from the creature’s mouth, he saw it.  A small cube floating aimlessly within the transparent, gelatinous innards of the creature’s body.  He cursed quietly.  “Don’t tell me we’re going to have to kill this thing…”

“I certainly wouldn’t think so.”

“But we have to get it out of there.”

Obi-Wan placed a hand over his beard and then handed his lightsaber to Anakin.  “Hold this.  I’m going to try something.”

“What are you going to do?”

Anakin received no response and was forced to simply watch as Obi-Wan pulled a ration bar out of his belt and knelt down, crawling slowly toward the creature.  It wasn’t entirely clear whether or not the thing had eyes, but it did seem to be, at the very least, _aware_ of Obi-Wan and shuffled around him as he moved closer, pulling its mouth from the ceiling of the room with a _pop_.

“Hello, there,” Obi-Wan said in that particular tone of voice he saved only for the wretched creatures of the galaxy with which he got along so well.  Sometimes Anakin thought Obi-Wan enjoyed the company of mindless beings more than he did Anakin.

Holding the ration bar up towards the creature, Obi-Wan said.  “How would you like some of this, hmm?”

It seemed to be apprehensive, which Anakin could relate to, but ultimately Obi-Wan’s influence in the force won it over and the creature sucked the bar right out of his hand.

Seconds later its entire form began to ripple like jello that was being repeatedly and angrily poked.  Obi-Wan jogged quickly back to where Anakin stood and took his lightsaber back.  “I’d suggest we clear the room.”

“What did you do?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Obi-Wan said backing slowly toward the exit of the hallway from which they had entered.

“What if you killed it?” Anakin asked and followed him, only to turn around and see the creature was hot on his tail, rolling fast through the room and straight towards them.

“I don’t think it’s dead, Anakin.” Ahead of him, Obi-Wan broke into a sprint and Anakin did the same.  Seconds later, the creature burst through the small opening of the hall, barreling after them like an enormous, gooey boulder.

They were quickly approaching a fork in the road and Anakin called out, “left!” at the same exact time, Obi-Wan said, “Right, Anakin!”

“It’s left!”

Obi-Wan’s exasperation hit him tenfold through the force, apparently too strong to be kept in check, but with the holomap tucked safely into Anakin’s pack, there was no time pull it out and see who was correct. “No, it’s Right!  Left is a dead end!”

“ _Right_ is a dead, end!  I know it is.  I’ve been mapping this place out in my head the entire time we’ve been here.”

“Anakin, trust me!  I’ve gone over the holomap of this temple a thousand times.  It’s right!”

“That holomap isn’t complete!”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan yelled.  “And your infallible mind _is_?”

“Excuse me?”

Instead of responding Obi-Wan simply looked at him witheringly.

“I’m _going_ left!” Anakin said, and he did, celebrating internally when the path turned a corner and then weeping internally when it was cut off quite abruptly by a cave in and no small amount of acid leaking through the rocks.

Anakin cursed loudly and turned to find the creature had followed him with Obi-Wan’s shadow visible just behind, then cursed again as its once small, suction cup mouth unzipped itself down the length of its entire body, gurgled horribly, and expelled the complete contents of its digestive system.  That’s when time started to slow down.

Obi-Wan’s voice broke when he screamed Anakin’s name and it sent shivers down his spine, as though it were Obi-Wan being burned alive by acid vomit instead of him. 

And that’s when time started to speed up.

As it turned out, no one was being burned alive by acid vomit.  Or at least, Anakin didn’t think anyone was – he cast a quick look at Obi-Wan whose head was just visible behind the creature, and while his expression was pale and mortified, he looked physically fine otherwise. 

Anakin then looked down at himself, drenched in muddy, yellow slime which smelled greatly of eternal suffering, but which was miraculously not burning or melting him.

It seemed to dawn on Obi-Wan at roughly the same time and his old master pressed himself against the wall of the passage as the creature made some kind of moaning noise and rolled past him, disappearing around the corner.  “Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, and cleared his throat.  “Are – um, are you alright?”

“Well,” Anakin said.  “Considering that seconds ago I expected to be dying horribly right now, yeah, I’m doing pretty good.”

Obi-Wan let out a breath.

“On the other hand, I’m drowning in ancient alien barf, so I guess I could be better.”

Obi-Wan moved forward, made a strange abortive gesture like he was about to touch Anakin or embrace him or _something_ , and then stopped and stooped to pick up the small holocron which lay at Anakin’s feet, covered in the same disgusting slime as Anakin.

“Well,” he said, “This worked out nicely.”

“Did it?” Anakin asked, a little too loudly.  “And why am I not dead?”  He shook his arms out on either side of him, spraying the walls with alien vomit.

“I have my suspicions,” Obi-Wan said, watching Anakin strip his outermost layer of robes wearing an infuriating smile.  “Most creatures in the universe digest their food via hydrochloric acid, but a creature which _consumes_ acid must have some sort of neutralizing agent, otherwise the creature itself would be acidic.  That didn’t seem to be the case, so it makes sense that you weren’t burned by its regurgitation.”

“Oh great. That’s great to know.  Thanks.”

“Honestly it’s fascinating.  I’d love to be able to come back to this planet to study it, see if perhaps there are others.  It must have evolved in complete isolation within the temple.”

“Yeah well _I’d_ love to minimize my time spent wearing alien barf by as much as possible, so can we get out of here?”

“Of course Anakin,” Obi-Wan said in a very insincere tonality.  “I’d hate for you to be inconvenienced.”

======

It took an entire day for them to breach the entrance of the temple.  They’d managed to make much better time getting to the surface than they had finding their way down, but Anakin still felt crusty and the smell was enough to make him gag.  Obi-Wan had been visibly keeping his distance, which was irritating, but their timing couldn’t have been better.  They hadn’t been out of the temple for more than an hour, packing up the small camp Ahsoka and Rex had set up for their ground troops, when Admiral Yularen sent word of a separatist ship coming out of hyperspace on the other side of the planet.

They finished taking down camp and loading their cargo onto the gunships before General Grievous had even set foot on the planet.  It was an incredibly flawless escape, (except for the fact that Anakin was _still_ covered in puke).  Too flawless to be honest.  As they left the planet he exchanged a look with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, clinging to the gunship’s grab handles as they rocked and rattled their way out of the atmosphere.  His feeling of unease was shared by the both of them.  He could see it in their faces and he could feel it in the force around them.  There was nothing they could do now though besides hope that the cost of this victory didn’t end up being too high down the road.

 


End file.
